Eutelsat has suspended satellite carriage of Roj TV after a Copenhagen court ruled the channel to be a vehicle of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK has been listed for a number of years as a terrorist organisation by the European Union.

In a statement the Paris-based satellite operator said it had decided to suspend the presence of Roj TV on its satellites in order to avoid incurring criminal liability as an accomplice to terrorist activities.

It has also asked distributors uplinking Roj TV to its satellites to suspend broadcasts of the channel. Eutelsat cannot just switch the transponders off, because it could impact other broadcasters.

Roj TV broadcasts from Denmark, but in the past has used office facilities in Belgium.

In September the European Court of Justice ruled European countries were within their rights to prohibit broadcasters that infringe the principles of international broadcasting, but were unable to reception in another member state.

The case followed complaints by the Turkish authorities that Roj TV’s output was in support of the PKK.

www.broadbandtvnews.com, January 19, 2012

01/17/2012 21:02

Heron UAVs helped PKK set up bases in Hatay province, Turkish intelligence report says according to ‘Today’s Zaman’

Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles seen hovering over parts Turkey have gathered intelligence for the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), Turkey’s Today’s Zaman reported Tuesday according to Turkish intelligence agencies.

The report claimed that Israeli Heron drones helped the PKK gather information on the Hatay province, bordering Syria, to determine the locations for establishing training bases.

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Today’s Zaman failed to say whether the Turkish report implicated Israel in aiding the PKK in any specific attack, many of which result in the deaths of Turkish soldiers.

It claimed, however, that Kenan Yıldızbakan, a PKK member that organized an assault on a naval base in 2010, had visited Israel a number of times, lending to suspicions of collusion.

The PKK is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

The decades-long conflict between Turkey and Kurdish separatists located largely along the Turkish border with Iraq and Syria has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Kurds, and over 10,000 Turkish soldiers and police.

The Turkish intelligence report underlines the low in diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey, which nosedived when Israel announced it would not apologize officially for the deaths of nine Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara.

Turkey downgraded military, political and economic ties with the Jewish state in the wake of the diplomatic row.

via ‘Israeli drones aiding PKK activities in T… JPost – Middle East.

via Democratisation and Political Change in Turkey « Jonathan Fryer.

COPENHAGEN, Jan 10 (Reuters) – A Danish court imposed a small fine on the owners of a Kurdish television station on Tuesday but did not shut it down, despite finding it guilty of promoting terrorism, a decision condemned by Turkey which is fighting Kurdish separatists.

Prosecutors said Roj TV, an international satellite station based in Denmark, was financed and controlled by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group labelled a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Ankara has long sought to have Roj TV banned. However, the Copenhagen court did not revoke its broadcasting licence and instead fined the two companies behind it 65,000 Danish crowns ($11,100) each.

The verdict was cheered by dozens of Kurdish demonstrators who gathered outside the courthouse but was condemned by Turkey as lending support to terrorists.

” This is an absolutely irresponsible decision far from prudence ,” Turkish Minister for EU Affairs

via UPDATE 1-Turkey angry after Danish court leaves Kurd TV on air – chicagotribune.com.

In its main headline on Sunday, Turkish Aydinlik newspaper quoted “credible sources” as saying that the US drone had launched the airstrike by targeting the victims.

The report added that Turkey’s F-16 fighter jets had arrived at the scene between 16 to 18 minutes later.

In December, Turkey said that its warplanes mistakenly targeted Kurdish smugglers, thought to be members of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group, in the village of Ortasu in the southeastern province of Sirnak close to the border with Iraq.

According to the report, the U.S. drones that have been stationed in Incirlik Airbase in southern Turkey are completely directed by US personnel in Nevada and Turkish Armed Forces have no control over them.

The U.S. delivered four Predator drones to Turkey last year, as part of Washington’s gesture of support to the Turkish fight against PKK terrorists.

More than 45,000 people have lost their lives since the PKK launched an armed campaign against Ankara in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast in 1984.

(Source: Press TV)

Today in our class discussion we talked about the massacre of the Armenian population in Turkey during the first World War along with the Kurdish minority in Turkey and it’s terrorist organization the PKK(Kurdistan Workers’ Party).

On the Armenian massacre or “genocide” topic we discussed the two differing views that the Turkish and the Armenian people have on the issue. Turkey does not classify this incident as a Genocide but it does take responsibility for the fact that many Armenians were killed on the forced march that they were forced to take. The Turkish government felt that the Armenians were a security threat on their Eastern border and so started the march that, by the end, killed upwards of 650,000 Armenian people, due to starvation and other types of death. On the Armenian side of the issue we see a stance of labeling this happening as a Genocide. They feel that it was a specific policy set by the Turkish government to eliminate them as an ethnic group. So far there has been no official agreement on the issue between the two governments but some progress has been made on the part of the Turkish government in terms of them wanting to open their records to the public to gather the facts of the time and decide what exactly happened, this would be a joint effort with the Armenians but so far they have been non-responsive to this endeavor. Our discussion in class on this topic was a heated one with many varied opinions on the topic and we probably could have talked about it for much longer than we did today.

Moving on to the PKK, the Kurdish terrorist organization, we see a movement by circles in the Kurdish population working towards an independent Kurdish nation. This group uses both politics and violence to further their cause through their history as an organization we do see some progress towards at least recognition of the importance of the Kurdish minority and their needs as a people.

In the second part of our day as a class we watched a movie entitled Bliss. This is a film about woman who was physically abused and her journey, along with her future husband, to get away from village where it happened and also to find her place in Turkey. They find friends in unsuspected places and eventually she comes to terms with the problem. This movie, i think, also portrays the differing cultural values that are important to different parts of Turkey. In this village where this woman lived, if you were violated in this way, you had brought shame to the family and should not be a part of this world anymore. By the end of the movie and her eventual escape from this problem we see the people around her questioning this view and changing their minds in favor of the more modern view of this problem, one in which it was not her fault and the family just had to do their best to deal with and move on from the problem. Overall i think this movie was an interesting one.

So that is a recap of January 5, our on-campus class, Can’t wait to get to Turkey!!

via Turkey: At the Crossroads of East, West, North and South, January 5 – On Campus Class – Posted on January 5th, 2012 by Samuel Krech.

Saturday,January 7 2012, Your time is 14:44:37

New Turkey, the PKK and jet lag

Recently, Turkey has made considerable efforts to overcome its historical jet lag. On one side Turkey lives in “Western time,” while on the other it lives in “Eastern time.” While some live in the post-millennium world, others live in the Cold War era; while some live in the 21st century, others are stuck at the end of 20th century, or even at the late 19th century. Political actors of different social, political and economic backgrounds often find themselves grouped along a similar political line. The main reason for this is these actors, in their social and political approaches, attempt to reconcile incommensurable socio-political temporalities.

The aerial bombing of the Iraqi border region, resulting in 35 deaths, is one of the most tragic moments of this period. The questionable killing of civilians had a direct impact on the reactions of political actors. As expected, the government declared the incident a disastrous mistake and initiated an investigation. The main opposition party, leaving behind the equivocating discourses it adopted just a few weeks ago after Prime Minister Erdoğan’s apology for the Dersim massacre, demanded a thorough investigation into the incident.

For the first time in the recent history of Turkish Republic, we have witnessed the state breaking away from old habits in the face of harm done to its own citizens. In contrast to the indifferent attitude of the past, the Turkish Armed Forces accepted blame and announced they had initiated an investigation into the incident. Although this new attitude does not meet adequate levels of democratization, it demonstrates a concept of accountability is gradually taking root in the country.

The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and PKK’s reactions condoning violence were among the most provocative after the bombing tragedy. It demonstrated, once again, the difficulty in overcoming the historical jet lag syndrome completely. It is clear the incident is a tragic mistake on the part of the state.

At the end of the investigation, it may even prove to be a conspiracy. Nevertheless, it is also clear the state’s reaction to the incident differs from its attitudes in the 1990s in the face of such events. The BDP/PKK’s adoption of a political discourse based on incorrect analogies and short-sighted political interpretations is an indication of their insistence of the habits and discourses of the ’90s.

In Turkey today, legal political channels are wide open. As long as violence and illegal actions are not rendered viable, Turkey promotes a productive democratic environment incomparable to its old patterns. In fact, no one can claim Turkey has completed its process of democratization. As numerous scientific researches and trials evince, the most problematic institutional structure in Turkey, the judiciary, still suffers from growing democratization pains. BDP/PKK may be the only other institution that shares the judiciary’s political path. The Kurdish political movement and PKK maintain discourses and activities similar to the ones they exhibited in old Turkey.

Political science fails to offer an adequate explanation for the PKK’s isolation from current developments in Turkey, the Middle East and the world. In the context of new political structures in Turkey and the Middle East, those who condone violence fail to see it is this attitude that leads to bloodshed. They fail to see “the demand for accountability” is the unquestionable right of citizens within the boundaries of law. For the PKK/BDP to detach itself from the previous century and reach the social, political and economic world of 2012, it must first acknowledge the historical jet lag syndrome from which it suffers.

January/06/2012

via TAHA ÖZHAN – New Turkey, the PKK and jet lag.

Turkey uses Israeli-made Heron unmanned aerial vehicles in its military operation against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists. (File photo)

A senior Turkish politician has called on the government for an immediate end to its intelligence cooperation with the United States and Israel, Press TV reports.

“Turkey’s reliance on Israel and the US for gathering intelligence in fight against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) can create serious problems for Turkey,” Mustafa Yilmaz, the deputy leader of Turkey’s Felicity Party, said on Wednesday.

Yilmaz highlighted a recent botched airstrike in southeastern Turkey that killed 35 civilians as yet another proof that Ankara needs to develop its own defense and intelligence infrastructure and end reliance on Israel and the US in this regard.

“The question is that did Israel, or the intelligence it provided, mislead Turkey to carry out the airstrike? The issue should be closely reviewed,” he urged.

The remarks come amid Turkey’s military campaign against the Kurdish separatist militants of PKK which sees the Turkish army employ Israeli-made Heron and US-made Predator drones.

Yilmaz also called on Ankara to reconsider the list of its “strategic allies and partners,” that include the US and Israel. Washington and Tel Aviv are only after their own interests and do not respect the rights and borders of other countries, he noted.

The remarks come amid Turkish media reports that an Israeli spy drone was detected flying over a military zone in the southern province of Hatay in September.

The Heron drone has been reportedly hovering over the military command post for several hours in order to capture the pictures of radars and missile systems in the area.

After the aircraft was confirmed to be an Israeli drone, two Turkish F-16 fighter jets were scrambled from an airbase in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir to ward off the Israeli drone.

Turkish officials have not made any comment about the report.

MRS/JR

via PressTV – ‘Turkey must end US, Israel intel. coop’.

Turkey plans to boosts fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party by acquiring several items of weapons and vehicles worth billions of US dollars.

AgustaWestland will deliver its first T-129 attack helicopter, a joint project with Turkish Aerospace Industries, by the end of this year, an official says.

AgustaWestland will deliver its first T-129 attack helicopter, a joint project with Turkish Aerospace Industries, by the end of this year, an official says.

Ümit Enginsoy Ümit Enginsoy uenginsoy@aol.com

The Turkish military is slated to acquire several weapons systems to use against terrorists from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) this year, one senior procurement official said last week.

Italy’s AgustaWestland and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) have been collaborating on building the T-129 attack helicopter, a Turkish version of the company’s A129 Mangusta International.

AgustaWestland is scheduled to deliver the first nine of a planned 59 helicopters to the military toward the end of 2012.

Turkish authorities then will assemble the required weapons systems on the platforms, and the nine helicopter gunships are expected to enter service in 2013, the official said.

Separately, the United States is expected to deliver three AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters early this year. The U.S. Congress approved the sale of these three choppers, worth $125 million, toward the end of 2012.

Additionally, TAI, Turkey’s state-owned aerospace powerhouse, is scheduled to deliver to the military three Anka Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicles in 2012, to be used for reconnaissance purposes, the official said.

Turkey is already operating nine Israeli-made Heron MALE drones against the PKK. The United States has also deployed another four RQ-1 Predator MALE drones at Turkey’s southern İncirlik airbase to fly over PKK camps in northern Iraq and provide the Turkish military intelligence.

Additionally Turkey has requested to buy four RQ-1 Predator reconnaissance drones and two armed MQ-1 Reapers, but the U.S. has not responded to the request.

In addition to its MALE drone capabilities, the Turkish military operates scores of smaller drones.

Unmanned vehicles

TAI’s efforts to develop and produce the Anka have seen a delay of several years. “Attack helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles are among the most effective weapons against terrorists, and we will have an abundance of these weapons soon,” said one security official.

The PKK this year intensified terrorist attacks against Turkish military and civilian targets, causing a public outrage.

Separately, the U.S. Boeing is expected to deliver the first of a planned four spy planes to the Turkish Air Force in 2012. The program to manufacture the four Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) aircraft is worth more than $1.6 billion and is behind schedule a few years.

The Defense Industry Executive Committee, Turkey’s highest procurement agency, is also expected to select a foreign company in Turkey’s $4 billion long range air and missile defense system program. Among the candidates competing to build an air and missile defense system with Turkish partners are U.S. companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, with their Patriot Air and Missile Defense System; Russian Rosoboronexport’s S-300; Chinese CPMIEC’s (China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corp.) HQ-9; and European Eurosam’s SAMP/T Aster 30.

The Defense Industry Executive Committee’s members include Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Defense Minister İsmet Yılmaz, Chief of the Turkish General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel and Procurement Chief Murad Bayar.

Finally, the committee would select a national commercial shipyard which will manufacture the third through the eighth of the Milgem national corvettes. The first two corvettes were built at a military shipyard. The first corvette, the TCG Heybeliada, already has entered service in the Navy, and the second, the TCG Büyükada, has been put to sea for tests.

January/02/2012

via ECONOMICS – Turkey awaits key anti-PKK weapons.

Constanze Letsch in Diyarbakir
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 December 2011 18.20 GMT

Children enjoy a motorbike ride in Diyarbakir, a mainly Kurdish city in south-eastern Turkey where a courtroom has been built for the mass trial of more than 150 Kurdish politicians and activists. Photograph: Bulent Kilic/AFP

Since the beginning of the Arab uprising Turkey has been held up as a blueprint for the emerging Middle Eastern democracies to copy. But many observers question whether its treatment of its Kurdish minority gives it the right to be treated as a role model.

This year more than 4,000 people have been arrested under arbitrary terrorism charges, including dozens of journalists arrested last week, military operations against Kurdish separatists have intensified, with at least 27 killed in December alone, and guerrillas have stepped up violent attacks on security forces and civilians.

Mass trials of Kurds, including local deputies, mayors, academics and human rights activists, have inched forwards. In the biggest case, more than 150 politicians and activists are being tried in a specially built courtroom in Diyarbakir. More than 100 of the defendants have been in pre-trial detention, some of them for many months.

Abdullah Demirbas, the mayor of a district in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in eastern Turkey, is among the defendants on trial for “membership in the KCK”, an illegal pan-Kurdish umbrella organisation that includes the armed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK).

If convicted, he faces 35 years in jail on these charges alone.

“They have not even found a pocket knife in my house,” Demirbas said. Human rights groups have repeatedly expressed their concern about the arbitrary use of terrorism laws in Turkey.

“The Turkish laws make no distinction between political activity and terrorism. It is never examined in what kind of activities people are actually involved and whether these qualify them for prosecution. Very many of these cases are based on guilt by association,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey researcher for Human Rights Watch.

“People have a right to association. You may not like what people are associating with, but it is illegitimate to just jail, suppress and silence critics.”

Demirbas fears that the massive repression of politicians and human rights activists will decrease confidence in politics and lead to more violence: “A state that wants to end violence should widen the political sphere as much as possible, so that people who used to feel compelled to use armed force will turn to dialogue instead.

“But [Turkey] does exactly the opposite: they arrest more than 4,000 people that have never held a weapon, so people will think: ‘If we enter politics, we will end up like that.’”

Demirbas does not need to look far for examples: he was given a prison sentence of two years and six months after saying, in May 2009, that “a soldier’s and a guerrilla’s mother’s tears are the same colour. This war needs to end”.

Three weeks later his then 16-year-old son joined the PKK.

“He told me: ‘Dad, see this is what happens when you try to do politics. This state does not understand politics, it only understands weapons.’”

Demirbas said that he tried in vain to persuade his son to stay.

“That is the psychology of thousands of Kurds. I know of at least 2,000 young Kurdish people who have [joined the PKK] since then.”

Mehmet Emin Aktar, president of the Diyarbakir Bar Association, said that Turkey had become “a republic of fear”.

He says: “A democratic state needs to provide a trustworthy judiciary. People need to know that they can expect justice if they step in front of a judge. But this is no longer the case.”

Like many of his colleagues, he is very worried that the situation will reach a breaking point: “If fear and threats continue to be the main method of the government, the younger generation of Kurds will become more radical.”

In the cafeteria of the Dicle Firat cultural centre, a group of men were discussing the latest KCK arrests. “We all have our bags packed,” Kazim Öz said. “We now live on the assumption that each and every one of us could be arrested at any minute.”

Another man nodded. “Where is this supposed to end? They can’t arrest all of us! This morning I counted 36 grandchildren. They can’t finish us Kurds like this.”

With tensions turning violent again, investment and business development in Diyarbakir has stalled, making unemployment and poverty, for decades a major problem in the predominantly Kurdish south-east, ever more acute.

With prejudice fuelled by the Turkish media, discrimination against Kurds continues.

“Those who conduct business outside Diyarbakir province will not register their car here,” said one local Turkish Kurdish politician from the ruling AKP party. “The ’21′ on your licence plate is often enough to get randomly pulled over and fined. It’s just not worth the trouble.”

Most people agree dialogue must be reopened and that the Democratic Opening, an ill-fated attempt at rapprochement launched at the end of 2008, was on the right lines.

Recent reports have indicated the AKP may be on the verge of a new peace overture.

“The AKP is wrong when they think they can destroy the PKK through military force,” said Vahap Coskun, assistant professor at the Diyarbakir Dicle University. “The PKK’s strength does not stem from the approximately 5,000 fighters in the mountains, but from its widespread legitimacy among an important part of the population. For every fighter that they kill, another will go to join them.”

Coskun said that the PKK, too, was making a mistake in escalating attacks and violence. “People here are tired of fighting. The PKK’s attempts to use the momentum of the Arab spring to incite people to revolt have failed.”

He believes that the Kurdish-aligned Peace and Democracy BDP party should encourage peaceful civil disobedience campaigns again, and keep young Kurds from taking up arms.

“There is a massive potential: they have a party, civilian organisations, media, and a very young and mobile mass of people,” he said. “If they manage to gather 10,000 people in the streets of Diyarbakir, peacefully demanding mother tongue education, the government would have to acknowledge their request.”

This would also put in question the AKP government’s use of the “terrorist” label. “The unsuccessful civil disobedience campaign [after the 2011 elections] scared the government, because you cannot label civil disobedience as terrorism,” says Coskun.

In his butcher shop in the Diyarbakir city centre, Metin Özsanli, who is a member of the peace committee that has been arbitrating blood feuds, says: “My father has ended 250 blood feuds, and I have ended 65. It is incredible to see that capacity for forgiveness in people.”

He added: “We have to talk to both families many, many times, visit them both many times – when only one person has been killed. But over 40,000 people have died in this conflict.

“Prime minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan should not give up this easily. It will take many more talks with both sides to end this feud, but I am hopeful that it will end one day.”